The closure was real quick, as most said they heard it on Tuesday and on Wednesday the clinic was closed. The only person at the clinic who could see patients, a nurse practitioner left. So the clinic is looking for a replacement and the reason for the closure is “staff shortage”. Her page is still up here but I would guess it won’t be for long.

Some doctors are not taking new patients so this is a bit of a hardship here as well as patients driving to other Mayo facilities until a replacement is found. Patients would have to travel to Austin or Rochester. According to this article it states even if they do get a doctor it may only be open a couple days a week, wonder what they are paying a doctor?

This is considered a rural area so again that might make it more difficult to attract a replacement. This might indicate too that doctor shortages may appear more rapidly in the rural areas of the nation. BD

BLOOMING PRAIRIE — As far back as H. Peterson can remember, there has always been a clinic or doctor’s office open in Blooming Prairie — something that Peterson, the town’s mayor, says has added to the community’s standard of living.

That all changed this week when Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin — the health care campus through which the Blooming Prairie clinic operated — announced that a staffing shortage has forced the closing of the Blooming Prairie facility, at least on a temporary basis.

“I’m incredibly disappointed,” Peterson said about the announcement. “We’ve worked hard to maintain the clinic.”

And he said, the community itself has expressed what Peterson called “a lot of general disappointment” about the closing, even if it just on a temporary basis.

“She’s the one who was licensed to see patients,” said Tammy Kritzer, the operations administrator for both the Austin and Albert Lea campuses of Mayo Clinic Health System.

Becky Noble, the executive director of the Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce, said that the closing happened quickly, with most people hearing about the closing on Tuesday and the doors being shut on Wednesday.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.